


A Most Peculiar Feeling

by Glinda



Category: Leverage
Genre: Getting Together, Multi, Polyamory, Self-Esteem Issues, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 17:29:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9913241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glinda/pseuds/Glinda
Summary: Eliot thinks its a terrible idea. He might be right, but when has that ever stopped them?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt 'Like sunburn in the evening', which is from _Don't Need the Sunshine_ by Catatonia. 
> 
> It started out as a bittersweet little vignette about Eliot waking up with Hardison and Parker for different reasons, sexual and non-sexual, and dealing (badly) with his complicated feelings about them both. I guess it's still that, but it got considerably longer and it evolved a rather happier ending, I think? Basically, my Eliot feels, let me show you them.

He wakes up slowly, warm and sore, but in a good way. A lots of fun exercise happened last night way. He’s caught in a tangle of limbs, but it’s a comfortable tangle, he feels the wave of contentedness roll over him and it would be so easy to let it drag him back down into sleep. Something niggles at him, as though he’s forgotten something really important. Reluctantly he opens his eyes. Long limbs and long blonde hair greet him, looking further down he can see a dark, definitely male leg thrown over his own. Alright, threesome, not expected but not unprecedented. That doesn’t explain the growing worry. Potentially he needs to have a word with his psyche if he’s picking up people that look like his colleagues for threesomes, but that’s one way to get it out of his system. 

Except, his blonde companion rolls over in her sleep so she’s facing him and she doesn’t look like Parker, she is Parker. Which means - he reluctantly rolls his head to the other side to check - that is mostly definitely Hardison on the other side. Eliot is completely screwed.

~

He gets away with it. Mostly. He gets out of the bedroom without waking anybody else - he doesn’t like leaving lovers without saying goodbye, it feels rude, it doesn’t mean anything that this is hard. Gets showered, dressed and if he doesn’t get any sleep in his own bed, then it just means by the time the other two get up, he’s got an truly epic cooked breakfast on the go. They take it as the apology it is, are no more or less tactile with him or each other than they normally are, and don’t mention the night before. Eliot is relieved. Relief is definitely the emotion he’s feeling right now.

By the time Nate and Sophie appear for the team debrief, they have piles of food, and the three of them have settled into something enough like normal, that Eliot is fairly certain could be mistaken for grumpy somewhat hungover banter. He overhears a fragment of whispered conversation between Nate and Sophie that implies they reckon that Parker and Hardison had kept Eliot awake having noisy sex. Eliot doesn’t disabuse them of the notion. 

~

It’s not as if he doesn’t have his own place. He’s got places in several cities, all of them practical little bolt holes with decent kitchens. He just hadn’t realised Portland was going to be their base of operations long term when they’d arrived there, so hadn’t made any arrangements before Parker had suggested the three of them share the apartment above the brewpub. It’s a practical and surprisingly comfortable arrangement, and it keeps Parker from freaking out about her relationship with Hardison too much - she’s sharing an apartment with her teammates rather than living with her boyfriend. 

As much as he grumbles about finding them passed out asleep in odd places and eating his food, he still tucks blankets round them and feeds them both at anti-social hours. If it feels more like a home than anywhere else Eliot’s lived since he joined the army then no one else needs to know that. 

~

The first time Eliot knows he’s in trouble is in Washington. He’s had suspicions before, and its not like he didn’t know – years ago - that he would keep coming back to this crew unless they actively sent him away. As much credit as he gives Nate for keeping him from falling all the way down, he knows that a significant part of that was that Nate had given him people to care about and protect. But he pushed away the evidence that this was anything more than loyalty to the team. 

Perhaps he should have known when he offered to kill someone for Parker, not for a job, not to protect a life, but purely because they had hurt Parker, made her cry. But he could rationalise that, could rationalise so many little things that should have been clues. 

As much as he’d been delighted when Parker and Hardison got together – they fit so well together, are good for each other, and he doesn’t even try to lie to himself that he isn’t overly invested there – he had worried a little about what it meant for him. He valued his friendship with the two of them highly, the easy comradeship that the three of them have come to share is a balm to his soul in dark moments. (If he’s entirely honest, he knows that he only ‘got away with’ his escape from the pair of them because they let him, that he’s only a few near-death experiences and a couple too many drinks away from falling back into their arms. He refuses to let himself tarnish them or their hearts.) He knows all too well how hard it is to build the rapport and teamwork they have together. 

Fundamentally, his job is to keep them safe on jobs, and this one is definitely not what they signed up for. Yet, he cannot deny how relieved he is to have them with him, to have them refuse point blank to leave him behind. Time has taught him not to expect to have his own loyalty returned, and it is both blind-siding and gratifying to be proved wrong. He knows he’ll be keeping the image of Parker steel-eyed and serious to fend of 3am doubts and nightmares.

After Washington, he doesn’t bounce back as fast as he expects to. Not that anyone else thinks he’s taking too long to heal. For the first few days, anytime he gets up for longer than enough time for a piss or a shower, he gets chased back to bed. Any protests crushed by one or other of Parker or Hardison shouting variations of ‘you were shot! Several times!’ in his direction. 

It’s not as though he didn’t know that he loved them. Eliot values his own life very poorly – values it higher now than he used to, but that’s quite a low baseline – so saying that he’d die for them doesn’t really cut it. No, what really scares him is that he might live for them. He’s never expected to get old, people in his line of work rarely do, and while he’d occasionally daydreamed about ‘after’ in the army, he’d long since accepted that there wouldn’t be an ‘after’ for him. That he didn’t deserve an afterwards. 

He tries to imagine it, life when he can’t be their hitter any more. When someone younger and faster than him, is taking the beatings and keeping them safe, working on their own redemption. Could he deal with that? Being just their chef? The idea of training up some lost and broken soul to take his place on the road to redemption has a certain appeal, but the thought of trusting the crew – Parker and Hardison especially – to anyone else, makes his blood run cold. 

So he lets them fuss about him, eats the takeout they bring him and refrains from complaining too loudly when they trap him on the sofa. He sleeps a lot and he’d suspect them of dosing his food, but he knows nature documentaries have a soporific effect on him if he doesn’t move regularly.

It’s not until Nate and Sophie get back from their adventures that he begins to suspect that something is up. He wakes on the sofa, warm and contented, Parker’s sleeping form curled on top of him in such a way, that he can’t actually move without disturbing her and yet not leaning any weight on either of his wounds. He appreciates the skill and cunning involved – he didn’t notice her arrival – and pushes away the warm fuzzy feeling that accompanies having her so close. She also smells really nice. He is, he thinks staring up at the ceiling, completely screwed. A gentle throat clearing draws his attention to where Nate is standing eyeing them curiously. 

“Is this an common occurrence?” He asks. 

Eliot is saved from having to come up with an answer to that one by Hardison from somewhere behind the sofa, half-distracted and clearly working on something.

“Have you tried getting that man to actually rest? He’s like the worst patient in the world. The only way to get him to actually stay still is to physically pin him down. You know what he did earlier? The wound on his leg opened up in the shower because he’d snuck down to the kitchen during the night and made a pot of soup. Didn’t even sit on a stool – stood the whole time. And you know what I caught him doing? He was trying to sew it closed himself!” Hardison seems to be winding himself up for a good rant, which normally Eliot would encourage but he’s getting louder as he goes and he’ll wake Parker up in a minute. 

“Hey, I didn’t try, I made a perfectly good job of it,” he insists, which has the virtue of being true, he’s quite proud of those tiny little stitches, he’d rather have used super glue but the wound was too large. “And keep it down, you’ll wake Parker.” 

“Shh, sleeping,” Parker agrees with a smug little smile and snuggles down on him a little more securely. 

Eliot decides its for the best that Nate doesn’t discover that last night was the first night that Eliot had convinced the pair of them that they didn’t need to sleep in the same room as him. That he’d lain awake for hours in the too quiet room, staring at the ceiling and missing the sound of their breathing. Expecting having his bed to himself to be delightful and liberating, only to find it felt too big and empty. That he’d stood in their shared living space for nearly half an hour, staring at their bedroom door having a battle of wills with himself about admitting defeat. Eventually hobbling downstairs to make soup in an attempt to stave off the miserable waves of self-loathing and redundancy that were trying to engulf him. But then, he doesn’t want Parker and Hardison to know that either.

Nate’s expression, when Eliot can bring himself to meet the other man’s eyes, speaks volumes about how screwed he thinks Eliot is regardless. 

~

‘Til my dying day, he tells Sophie and he means it. It feels more binding than any oath or wedding vow could. He won’t leave them, he can’t leave them, he doesn’t want to. 

~

He wakes up slowly, warm and sore, but in a good way. A lots of fun exercise happened last night way. He’s caught in a tangle of limbs, but it’s a comfortable tangle, he feels the wave of contentedness roll over him and it would be so easy to let it drag him back down into sleep. This morning he doesn’t have any kind of alcohol induced memory loss to shield him, he knows exactly where he is and why he’s there. This time when he opens his eyes Parker is watching him, staring intently at him in all honesty, so that’s one exit strategy out the window. He wonders guiltily if Parker had been awake last time, faking sleep to see what he would do. Silently willing him to – leave? To stay? 

“Staring at people when they’re asleep is kinda creepy, Parker,” he tries. 

“You weren’t asleep, you just didn’t want to admit you were awake yet,” she counters. Which is true, he was. Though the reason she can tell that, is probably quite creepy in its own right. He changes the subject, because there doesn’t seem any point prevaricating any longer.

“This is still a terrible idea,” he tells her. It was a terrible idea last night – it was a terrible idea last time they did this too - but he’d been too tired and unhappy and in desperate need of that most physical reminder that they were safe and alive to put up more than a token resistance. He could resist either of them separately, but together there was no denying them. All his arguments turning to dust in the face of mutual desire. 

Parker snorts quietly, “you keep saying that, but you never provide any decent arguments to support your assertion.” She pokes his chest to emphasise her point, before stroking her hand over the contact point in silent apology when he flinches. The action triggers some very specific memories of the night before, making their own argument in favour of the idea in question.

“Oh I have arguments, you just weren’t interested in hearing them last night,” he replies. “I could write a book about why this is a terrible idea, for you guys and for me.” He snaps his mouth shut at that point, biting down on all the reasons that want to come pouring out. All his silent fears. He is far too tangled up in them both without adding sex to the mix. 

“Seriously man,” grumbles Hardison sleepily from behind him, “I will buy you a ring myself if that’s what it takes. Hell, Parker’ll steal you one if that’s not romantic enough for you.”

Beside him Parker nods earnestly at him and Eliot doesn’t know whether to shout at them or burst into tears. In the lull, while Eliot attempts to wrestle his emotions and his words into some kind of order, Hardison props himself up so he can simultaneously see them both better and somehow plaster himself more thoroughly along Eliot’s side. 

“If you don’t want this,” Hardison continues hesitantly, gesturing expansively at the three of them, “then, well we’re not going to believe you.” Eliot’s brain choses that moment to helpfully remind his of several moments of his own rather enthusiastic participation in the previous evening’s activities, and he can’t really blame them for that. “But we’ll respect your decision. If you need time to sort your head out about it, that’s cool. It doesn’t change anything that matters, and even if it does, we’ll change together, it’s what we do.”

“You act like this is some simple or sensible idea!” He objects, “like it wouldn’t be an unacceptable vulnerability. It’s my job to keep you two safe, and there is a clear and present danger to you both in this, a point of leverage for all of us. Because I’m not going to pretend that this would just be about sex. We’re all too intertwined for us to pretend we could have some easy, friends with benefits situation. One of us has to be clear-headed about this and that has to be me. You two get your happily ever after, and I get to keep you and it safe. That’s a better end than I expected to get, and I’m good with that. I’m not some problem to be rotated until I fit, alright?! I meant what I told Sophie, if I leave you guys it’s because I’m dead, you don’t need to try and bind me to you any other way. I got contingencies set up for if I get taken out of the game, I’m not going to leave you unprotected…”

“Hey, we can find another hitter!” Hardison interrupts him, and Eliot’s blood runs cold and shocks him into silence, “Listen to me man, that’s not the issue here, there are folks we’ve called on before when we needed more muscle or you were out of commission. The insurmountable problem here is, that we can’t find another Eliot. We lose a crewmember that’s tough man, we enact righteous justice on their behalf, grieve them and fight harder in their honour. We lose you, because someone kills you to get to us? You better hope we get Nate in to run the job, because her and me? We’re not enacting anything like justice, it’ll be bloody vengeance, and don’t look at me like that, when did I ever need to lay hands on someone to destroy them? Don’t you dare think, or pretend that we don’t…that we aren’t…invested…”

Parker’s expression is serious and her face is almost entirely still as she watches their exchange. Of the three of them, Hardison has always been the most open about and comfortable with his emotions, so there’s something slightly disquieting about Hardison sound so scared without a physical threat. It’s only because Eliot knows her so well that he can identify the tells that show him that she’s just as unhappy as Eliot to see Hardison so overwhelmed by his emotions. (She wants to crawl over and curl around Hardison, comfort him with skin and touch, Eliot wishes desperately that she would, so he can crush down his own desire to do the same.) It’s not until Hardison flails a hand in her direction that her ‘mastermind’ expression cracks, catching his flailing hand and squeezing it, bringing it to rest briefly on Eliot’s chest. Only when she releases it again does her expression soften all at once, though when she does speak, her voice is still terribly serious.

“There are three people in this relationship, regardless of whether or not you sleep with us. This way no one has to pretend they don’t want to kiss anyone else and no one gets left in the waiting room while anyone else is unconscious in hospital. I know,” she pauses, mouth scrunched up tight as chooses her words carefully, “I know you’re scared. Feelings are scary, frankly I’d rather jump off a building than deal with them. But this is important Eliot, you’re important, it would be much worse to think you never knew how important you are to us.”

“Just think about it,” Hardison puts in softly, control mostly back in place, “we can wait.”

Eliot sits up slowly and they don’t try to stop him, he takes a long moment to stretch before he slides himself down the bed to where he can reach over the end to pull the comforter off the floor. Resolutely not looking at either of them, he pulls the comforter up over the three of them and crawls back up the bed. Unrepentantly he steals one of Hardison’s pillows and beats it mercilessly into submission before flopping down onto his stomach. 

“Oh I’ve thought about it,” he grumbles, “I have given days worth of thought to how well our teamwork might transfer to the bedroom and also to how badly we are likely to crash and burn. So. I want it noted for the record that I said this was a terrible idea and would only end in disaster and heartbreak. But you guys were all rose-tinted glasses – seriously Parker, I expected better of you – and sweeping romantic gestures. Like I need to be any more utterly compromised about the pair of you. I give in, who am I to refuse really good sex when attractive people are stupid enough to offer me it.”

“You get the ‘I told you so’,” agrees Parker, interrupting his flow. Which is frankly a relief because Eliot was kind of running out of steam and he’s caught on the cusp of bursting out laughing with joy or into tears of despair. It could go either way.

“Man, shut the hell up,” Hardison exclaims, voice rough with emotion, “you’re the most romantic man I know.”

They curl into him under the covers, and Eliot forces himself not to pretend that he doesn’t feel safe and right caught between them. It’s going to take a lot of work – there’s no way that negotiating three people’s issues is going to be simpler than it would be with two - but Eliot begins to let himself believe that it’ll be worth it. He’s caught in a tangle of limbs, but it’s a comfortable tangle, he feels the wave of contentedness roll over him and it would be so easy to let it drag him back down into sleep. He lets it.


End file.
